What are the determinants of a happy and fulfilling life?
This is surely one of life’s biggest questions, and a question that has interested many of our ancestors. Buddha famously gave up his kingdom in search of happiness. Several Greek philosophers (from Aristotle to Epicurus and Plato to Socrates) had their own views on what it takes to be happy. And of course, we all have our own theories about happiness too.
How valid are our theories?
Until recently, if you wished for an answer to this question, you would've been forced to base it on discussions with spiritual leaders. Or, if you were lucky, you could've based it on late-night (and perhaps intoxicant-fueled) conversations with friends and family. Happily, all that has changed now. Over the past decade-and-a-half, scientists have gotten into the act big time. We now have a pretty good idea of what it takes to lead a happy and fulfilling life.
This course, based on the award-winning class offered both at the Indian School of Business and at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, developed by Prof. Raj Raghunathan (aka "Dr. Happy-smarts") draws content from a variety of fields, including psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral decision theory to offer a tested and practical recipe for leading a life of happiness and fulfillment.
Although not mandatory, reading Prof. Raj's forthcoming book, titled If you're so smart, why aren't you happy? can help you review and assimilate the material covered in this book at your leisure.
For Coursera learners alone, the hardcover version of the book is available for a deep discount of 50%, plus shipping and handling. You can order the hardcover for 50% off by writing to Aaron at: Aaron@800ceoread.com. Please mention that you are a student of the "coursera happiness course" in your email.
The course will feature guest appearances by several well-known thought leaders, including:
- Dan Ariely (author of Predictably Irrational and, soon to be released, Irrationally Yours),
- Ed Diener (“Dr. Happiness”),
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (author of Flow),
By taking this course, you will discover the answers to questions such as:
- Why aren’t the smart-and-the-successful as happy as they could—or should—be
- What are the “7 Deadly Happiness Sins” that even the smart and the successful commit?, and
- What are the “7 Habits of the Highly Happy” and how can you implement them in your life?
By the end of the course, I expect students who have been diligent with the lectures and exercises to not just gain a deeper understanding of the science of happiness, but to also be significantly happier.

教學方

Dr. Rajagopal Raghunathan

腳本

[MUSIC] Hi there and welcome back. So here we are at almost the end of the first week. I hope that you've been enjoying the lecture so far. In this video, I'm gonna give you instructions for the first happiness exercise, which is defining and incorporating happiness. As the name of the exercise suggests, it has two components. Defining happiness, this component involves figuring out what happiness means to you. And incorporating happiness, this component involves identifying the set of things that make you happy in a way that you have chosen to define it. In the last video, I shared with you some definitions of happiness. Here they are. Happiness as sensory pleasure, happiness as hubristic pride, happiness as authentic pride, happiness as love/connection, and happiness as abundance, the feeling that you have when you feel that you have everything that you need. These are, of course, not the only ways to define happiness. Here are some other ways of defining it. I picked these definitions of happiness from the work of Professor Barbara Fredrickson from the University of North Carolina and Chapel Hill. Happiness as joy. Joy, to me, is very closely aligned with the feeling that I call abundance because I feel that joy arises from the belief that you have the things that you need in order to be happy. That your life is already kind of abundant. Happiness as a feeling of serenity. Serenity has to do with the feeling of calmness and tranquility. Professor Barbara Fredrickson and her colleagues find that serenity is the second most commonly experienced positive emotion after joy. Happiness as a feeling of interest. Interest has to do with being engaged with something, certain object or a person or an activity. It is closely related to curiosity. That is, you might think of curiosity and interest as two sides of the same coin. They go together. Finally, happiness can be equated to amusement or to laughter. We all know that happy people have a easy laugh about them and laugh a lot. But what also seems to be true is that laughter can enhance happiness levels. Robert Provine, author of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation, provides a good overview of the research on the influence that laughter has on our happiness levels. So, in all, I've exposed you to eight different definitions of happiness. Consider these definitions and ask yourself, which definition am I most drawn to? Which definition seems most appealing to me? Then, in the space below, type out your own definition of happiness. Great, so you have your own definition of happiness. Not too many people have a concrete idea of what happiness means to them, but now you do. Good for you. Now, here's one more thing that I want you to do. I want you to think of three to four things that lead you to feel happy in the way that you have defined it. To help you with this, let me share with you my own definition of happiness. Being joyful and lighthearted, but not at the cost of compassion or rationality. The four things that quite lively lead me to experience this feeling are, one, reminding myself that everyone has problems, and that for the most part, people at least have the intention to be kind and generous and well-meaning. That makes me feel happy. Watching elevating movies like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, which came out, I think in 2012, or Before Sunrise, watching these movies makes me feel expansive for some reason. Three, going for a run, or exercising in general, particularly if it’s a relatively intense workout. Handing out with my kids. For some odd reason, that makes me feel really happy. Actually, they're great kids. That's why it makes me feel really happy to hang out with them. Hopefully, this example has given you some ideas for identifying the three or four things that enable you to experience the feeling with which you equate happiness. In the space below, write down a set of three to four things, more if you can, that lead you to feel happy in the way that you have defined it. Once you've done it, please hit the Done button. Congratulations. Not only do you now have your own definition of happiness, you also have a list of things that make you experience that feeling. This should make you feel really happy. I'm going to turn to the lead TA for this course Catherine Xavier, who's always hanging out by the side here, ready to displace me to tell you what you need to do to complete a first assignment for this course. Over to Catherine. >> Thanks, Dr. Happy Smarts. Hi all, this is the first time I'm interacting with some of you. So let me extend a very warm welcome to you to a Life of Happiness and Fulfillment. In this video, I want to give you the instructions for the first happiness exercise in this course, Defining and Incorporating Happiness. Hopefully, you've already come up with your own definition of happiness and have also copied it. If you didn't do these things, don't worry. We'll give you another opportunity shortly. Soon you will see a link to a website appear on the screen, like this one here. That link will take you to a web page that looks like this. On this page, the first thing you will be asked to do is to enter your first and last name and your Coursera email ID. After that, you will click on the Get started button. This will take you to step one. That is an optional one. You can choose to watch the classic song, My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music. The song is obviously about the things that makes Maria happy, and as you already know, this exercise two is all about the things that make you happy. Seeing and hearing the song should inspire you to think of your favorite things that make you happy or at least make you feel better when you feel blue. The next thing is to click on Continue to step 2. That consists of two stages. Stage one, you figure out what happiness means to you and come up with your own definition of happiness. Stage two, identify a set of things that makes you happy in the way that you have defined it. Next, click on Proceed to stage 1. This will take you to stage one of step two in this exercise, defining happiness. If you have your copied your definition of happiness from before, you should paste it in the space provided for it. My definition of happiness is the same as Professor Raj's, which is being joyful, but not at the cost to rationality or compassion. So that's what I have here. Then, when you click on the Done, I have my definition of happiness button at the bottom of the screen, you will be taken to stage two in the exercise incorporating happiness. In this stage, we'd like you to, like Maria in the Sound of Music, identify three to four things that make you happy in the way you have defined it in stage one. In other words, identify three to four things that evoke the feeling that you call happiness. For example, if you defined happiness as joy, identify the activities or the things that make you feel joyful. As you saw on the last screen, happiness to me is being joyful, but not at the cost to rationality or compassion. And what makes me feel happy this week are hanging out with my family, going to Sunday mass, and believe or not, working on building a course like this. I feel truly happy to be doing what I'm doing right now. Hopefully, you have already thought of the things that make you happy. If so, you will find it easy to type those in the box. If not, there's no problem. Take your time to think of the things that make you happy and type them in the box when you think of them. Once you complete the step and click the Done button, you will see your responses, that is, your definition of happiness, and the list of things that makes you happy on your screen. If you would like to revise your answers, click Go back to my list of things that makes me happy. If you are satisfied with your responses, click Next. You will be given the opportunity to receive a daily reminder to prioritize but not pursue happiness. If you want to take advantage of this opportunity you can click on, YES, I'd like to receive a daily reminder to make happiness enhancing decisions. If not, just click the No, thanks button, and click on Continue. You will need to upload your definition of happiness and the things that make you happy on the Coursera website so that you can get credit for completing them. Doing this is really simple. Click on Proceed to the next page. See this Download PDF link here? You'll simply have to click it to download a document that contains your definition of happiness and the things that need you to feel happy. Once you have done this, go back to the assignments link on the Coursera website and click on it. When you do it, you will see a link to this assignment. Click on that link that says Assignment one, Defining and Incorporating Happiness. This will take you to a page that looks like this, with two boxes in it. One for your definition of happiness, and another for the things that make you happy. Just cut and paste your definition of happiness and the things that make you happy into these two boxes. That's it. As you just saw, I just posted my first happiness exercise on Coursera. I hope that you too will complete the exercise soon and upload it for peer review on the Coursera website. That reminds me to tell you, that if you want your exercise graded, you should grade the submissions of five other students for this exercise. You will see the grading instructions as soon as you upload your definition of happiness and the things that make you happy. Now, I know that to some of you grading other's assignments might sound like work, but trust me, it's actually more fun than work. Seeing other students' definitions of happiness and reading about what makes others happy always makes me happy, and I'm sure that it will have the same effect on you, too. So don't wait. Start the exercise by clicking on the link that you will see in just a moment on your screen. With that, let me wish you goodbye for now and see you next week when I will be giving you the instructions for the second happiness exercise. >> Well, thank you, Catherine. That's it for this video. I will see you in the next video in which I will summarize everything that we have discussed this week. [MUSIC]